STIMULANT ADDICTION

What is Cocaine?
Cocaine is a chemical that has both local anesthetic properties and stimulant properties similar to adrenaline.

What is Crystal Methamphetamine?
Crystal methamphetamine is a chemical that has stimulant properties similar to adrenaline. Crystal methamphetamine has several different names (crank, crystal, speed). It may be used through snorting, smoking or injection.

What is Stimulant Addiction?
All addictive drugs produce an initial pleasurable effect, followed by a rebound unpleasant effect. An amphetamine, through its stimulant effects, produces a positive feeling, but when it wears off it leaves a person with the opposite feelings because the drug suppresses the normal brain transmitters. A chemical imbalance is created, resulting in irritability that physically demands more of the drug to go back to normal and feel good again. This pleasure/tension cycle leads to loss of control over the drug - and addiction.

Like adrenaline, stimulants increase your heart rate, blood pressure and breathing rate. They also constrict blood vessels, dilate pupils, release sugar and fat into your blood stream, and energize the brain to increased alertness. Stimulants increase feelings of anger, fear or agitation (fight or flight) and feelings of well-being, riding high, exhilaration or euphoria. When the stimulation goes too high, it produces feelings of panic, paranoia, hallucinations and rage that can progress to potentially fatal seizures and strokes. Ultimately, the brain becomes depressed by the local anesthetic effects, and coma and death can occur.

This first happens on a physical level. Then, it has a psychological effect. People, places and activities involved with using become more important. People, places and activities or lifestyles that worked through the normal reward system before using the stimulant become less important. In fact, after a time, a heavy user will actually resent people, places and activities not able to fit in with cocaine or 'meth' use.

In certain studies, animals would press levers to release certain stimulants into their blood stream, no longer concerned about eating, mating or other natural drives. They would, in fact, die in the process of giving themselves cocaine or methamphetamine.

Usually, a person using such stimulants never gets as big a "high" as she/he did on the first dose because of the drug's ability to suppress and deplete the brain's production of the normal chemical messenger for positive feelings. The brain adapts to the presence of the drug by decreasing production of the normal chemical messenger, requiring the user to use more to get less and less pleasurable effect, ultimately crashing. As tolerance develops to the euphoric effects, higher and higher doses of the stimulant are needed to get pleasurable effects, thereby increasing the risk from toxic effects.

What is Stimulant Craving?
Stimulant craving is the result of the drug imprinting in the memory a pleasant association of euphoria with the drug. The subconscious memory motivates the individual to seek this drug because of the false imprint. With cocaine, for example, the brain, in effect, has been trained that using the white powder is the fastest way to feel good. This learning process produces a new appetite or drive to seek the drug, called craving. This craving is most often activated by a memory of pleasure, a habit of using the stimulant drug to rapidly feel good when feeling bad, and in situations with people, places and activities where a previous habit pattern of use has been established.

Is There Withdrawal from Stimulants like Cocaine and Amphetamines?
Yes. The severity and length of the symptoms vary with the amount of damage done to your normal reward system through cocaine use and the rate of recovery. The most common symptoms are drug craving, irritability, loss of energy, depression, fearfulness, wanting to sleep a lot or difficulty in sleeping, shaking, nausea and palpitations, sweating, hyperventilation, and increased appetite. These symptoms can commonly last several weeks after you stop using.

As more methamphetamine comes into the body, more of the body's natural chemistry is suppressed. Eventually, natural reward messenger chemical production is almost shut down completely. If the drug is removed at this time, there will be a feeling of panic. This extreme state of irritability, tension and anxiety is what is called withdrawal. The severity and length of the symptoms vary with the amount of damage done to your normal reward system through amphetamine use. People who use amphetamines often lose weight because the drug turns off the drive to eat. The drug produces a feeling of satisfaction with regard to food, even though no food was eaten. Tolerance to this effect develops. When a person stops using the amphetamine, there is usually a rebound increase in appetite as the body discovers it literally has been feeding off itself and wasting tissue.